Silver Jubilee Lecture, GB Pant Institute of Social Sciences,
Allahabad, August 26, 2004, Published in May 2005.
North Eastern India: Land, Identity and Conflicts
Walter Fernandes
There is consensus among analysts that land and forests are the centre of tribal culture
and identity but opinions differ on the causes of ethnic conflicts around them, especially their
link with land in the Northeast. Much of India knows this region only for conflicts but very
few outside the region go beyond calling the conflicts secessionist or terrorist. We consider it
an oversimplification of a complex phenomenon that requires a deeper analysis than what
these statements represent. So in order to understand the issues involved in them we took
their causes as the starting point of our studies. The recent one was specifically on land
relations because earlier studies had indicated that encroachment of land by immigrants and
others and the adverse impact of the changes that the modern administrative and legal
systems introduce in the tribal tradition are among their basic causes. These inputs may not
begin the conflicts but exacerbate those existing already. They are linked on one side to the
neglect of the secondary sector by the outsiders who control the economy and on the other to
changing land relations through encroachment by immigrants, the interaction of the
customary law with the administrative and legal systems and the resultant class formation.
The Background of the Northeast
Though Sikkim has joined the North Eastern Council recently we restrict our study to
the “Seven Sisters”: Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland
and Tripura. Each of them has its own history but they also have some commonalities. Five
of them were directly or indirectly part of Asam in the British age. Secondly, they are
isolated from the rest of India, joined to it through a narrow corridor in West Bengal. Such
isolation has several social, economic and political implications. Thirdly, a substantial
section of its people belongs to the Mongoloid stock but the region also has several other
ethnic groups, each with its distinct culture and language. Around 420 of the 1,625 mother
tongues recorded in the Indian census belong to this region so it probably has around 400
ethnic groups (D’Souza 1999: 5). Tribals are a majority in its hill areas while non-tribals
dominate the plains and valleys. In 1991, 8.14 millions of India’s 67.76 million tribals lived
in the Northeast, some like the Boro and Mishing in the plains and the rest in the hills. The
tribals are over 80% in Nagaland, Meghalaya and Mizoram and two thirds in Arunachal but
they are small in number in the populous States of Assam, Manipur and Tripura. The literacy
status of the Hill States is higher than the national average (Fernandes 1999: 3579). Finally,
the Northeast has a long history of immigration that we shall discuss later.
However, the economic decision-makers controlling its economy have neglected the
secondary sector so unemployment is high. Inaugurating the ICSSR Seminar on Peace in
Assam in late August 2001, Chief Minister Mr. Tarun Gogoi said that the State had a backlog
of 20 lakh unemployed. The State’s Economic Survey 2003-2004 states that the employment
exchanges have 15,71,996 registered job seekers today against 15,24,616 in late 2001 (The
Times of India, 16th June 2004). Employment Exchanges underestimate the figure since they
exclude real or hidden rural unemployment (Rayappa 1992: 362-363). So even 20 lakhs may
be an underestimate for Assam. The other States would account for at least 10 lakhs more.
Land Ownership and the Law in the Northeast
Low investment and high unemployment show the importance of land as the people’s
livelihood. However, dependence on it is not uniform because the nature of land tenure as
well as the role of the community and of women in it are not the same all over the Northeast.
The region has three main forms of land tenure with variations in each of them. Individual
ownership is the norm among the Meitei of Manipur, the non-tribal Assamese, the Bengali of
Tripura and other non-tribal communities. On the other extreme are the fully community
based tribes like the Dimasa of Assam and the Aka of Arunachal Pradesh. The Angami and a
few other Naga and non-Naga tribes combine individual with clan ownership. The Angami
do not even ensure ownership of trees on it when they sell land. So trees and land may
belong to two different owners (D’Souza 2001: 23). Inheritance is along the male line in
most communities but some like the Khasi and Garo are matrilineal and a few like the
Dimasa and Rabha seem to combine the two forms (Fernandes and Barbora 2002a: 145-146).
Also the constitutional provisions differ. An amendment in 1963 introduced Article
371A to allow Nagaland to be governed by the Naga customary laws. Another amendment in
1987 introduced Article 371G to bring Mizoram under the same plan. The Sixth Schedule as
well as most customary laws recognise community ownership of land and forests. The whole
of Meghalaya comes under the Sixth Schedule so do the Karbi Anglong and North Cachar
Hills districts of Assam that also have Autonomous District Councils. Though two thirds of
Arunachal Pradesh is tribal with each tribe having its own customary law, it is governed not
under the Sixth Schedule but some administrative rules of the British age. Also the Manipur
and Tripura tribes that have their own customary laws are excluded from the Schedule. Only
the Mizos have codified their customary law (Barooah 2002: 99-100). A Territorial Council
(BTC) has been granted to the Bodo in 2003 after a long struggle. One is not certain that the
Sixth Schedule has been made fully applicable to them in the accord leading to it.
However, changes occurring in many tribes go beyond the legal provisions, mostly
because of the interaction of the customary law or the Sixth Schedule with the individual
oriented administration. For example, the Rubber Board encouraged the matrilineal Garo of
East Garo Hills to grow rubber and provided subsidies and loans only to patta owning heads
of families, usually understood as men. Till then the Nokma or the chief heiress used to take
decisions concerning land though men played an important role in them and shared in
women’s wealth producing work. With the State dealing with men alone in decisions on land
transfer, the Nokma’s husband has now become the main decision-maker. The inputs have
also led to individual pattas and class formation (Fernandes and Barbora 2002a: 117-119).
Among the patrilineal tribes too men interpret the customary law in their own favour.
For example, the Nagas have passed through the political process of the Nationalist Struggle
during which men went underground and women took charge of the family and society and
gained access to schools. As a result two thirds of the Angami graduates are women. Despite
it, men continue to interpret the customary law in their own favour and deny women all
rights over clan property. Their customary law allocated to women a higher status than in
caste societies but they were not equal to men (Kekrieseno 2002: 182-184). Studies show that
if measures are not taken to counter the negative impact of the commercialisation of land and
forests and of the individual oriented interaction of the administrative and financial systems
with the Sixth Schedule and the customary law, they intensify the weak points of their
tradition, introduce class formation and strengthen patriarchy (Marak 2002: 151-152).
In making this statement we do not romanticise the past or claim that what is modern
is all negative. We believe that change is inevitable but that the tribal communities have a
right to change on their own terms by building on their value system and strengthening
elements such as gender equity. We only state that protective measures are required against
the negative impact of modern inputs that can go against their long-term progress. Changes
have to be introduced that can help them to deal with modernisation on their own terms.
The Choice of the Communities
In our study on Changing Land Relations in the Northeast (Fernandes and Pereira
2004) we tested the above hypothesis that had emerged from our past studies that these
changes are basic to the conflicts, to class formation and to the strengthening of patriarchy. In
order to understand these processes we chose six tribes and a non-tribal group according to
their closeness to the customary law and their inclusion or exclusion in the Sixth Schedule.
Some are close to their tradition, a few have experienced modern inputs and are governed by
the Sixth Schedule and others have neither a customary law nor come under the Sixth
Schedule. The assumption in this choice is that the closer a tribe is to its tradition, the higher
the possibility of an equitable culture. So a comparison between these communities could
help us to understand the processes that sustain or destroy equity and women’s status. In their
choice we based ourselves on some years of contact with them and on secondary data on
their culture and society. We then held 60 group discussion sessions with men, women and
the youth among them and interviewed 662 families as well as a few individuals.
Though the Aka of West Kameng district in Arunachal Pradesh were among the first
to come in contact with the British, very little has been written about this jhum practising
tribe other than some administrative notes (Mac Kenzie 1995) and a monograph in the 1960s
(Sinha 1962). They are close to their tradition, are governed by their customary law and are
almost totally CPR dependants. However, they are not covered by the Sixth Schedule and the
law does not recognise their control over them. As CPR dependants they only know usufruct
rights over the community assets and lack the concept of individual land ownership. In the
jhum season each family cultivates what it needs and the land reverts to the community after
the season. Though CPR dependants, the woman’s status is not high among them (Fernandes
and Bharali 2002: 7-8). We also saw some changes. Three respondents called themselves
landless. Their main livelihood is a salaried job so they do not practise jhum any more and
claim no right over the CPRs. On the other side, two families claimed to own individual land.
In the past the Dimasa of North Cachar Hills in Assam were well exposed to the
outside world. They ruled much of Upper Assam till the 14th century when the Ahom
defeated and pushed them to the foothills of North Cachar. Though in the 19th century the
Bengali administrators accompanying the British colonialists Hinduised them and imposed
Bengali on them, they retain their autonomy and continue to be governed by their customary
law. They also come under the Sixth Schedule and a district autonomous council (Sen 1999)
but their elite is moving towards individual pattas partly because the Coffee Board
encouraged them to take to this crop by offering financial support to individuals alone. Today
one of their leaders owns over 200 acres (Barbora 2002). On the other side, a voluntary
agency has assisted some of them to grow oranges and other fruit crops without changing
their land ownership pattern. If many more of them accept it, they can become a model for
tribes that follow their customary law to accept changes without abandoning equity.
The Garo of Meghalaya are a matrilineal but patriarchal tribe governed by their
customary law and the Sixth Schedule (Marak 1997: 60-69). As stated above, in recent years
some of them in the East Garo Hills show signs of strengthening patriarchy and of class
formation because of the introduction of rubber with State support through subsidies and
loans only to individual owners, most of them men. We also studied twenty families in West
Garo Hills that continue their community ownership system but have not begun planting
commercial species. So they cannot be models of combining the modern with the traditional
that the Dimasa can be if more accept the system that is being encouraged by a voluntary
agency. However, a co-operative society is attempting to overcome some of the failures.
On the other extreme are the Adibasi of Jharkhand origin whom the British brought to
Assam in the 19th and 20th centuries as indentured labourers to work in its tea gardens (Guha
1975). They are not even included in the Schedule so they cannot speak of a customary law.
Their landlessness and the regimented work culture in the tea gardens for over a century have
deprived them of a tribal identity and have developed in them a psyche of helplessness
(Fernandes, Barbora and Bharali 2003: 33-34). Landlessness is the highest among them and
literacy the lowest. Their impoverishment and marginalisation seem to be getting intensified.
So they may not be able to improve their lifestyle even in the next generation (Toppo 1999:
133-134). So they represent the negative impact of modernisation on the tribal communities
The Boro, a plains tribe not under the Sixth Schedule, won a Bodo Territorial Council
(BTC) in 2003 after a struggle but till recently the law did not recognise their community
based customary law (Roy 1995: 40-44). The BTC has recognised their right partially. They
have almost fully internalised the ideology of the individual patta in the sense that those who
live on community land call themselves encroachers while others like the Aka and Dimasa
perceive themselves as CPR dependants (Fernandes and Pereira 2004: 52). The Bodo-Santhal
conflict for land and forests has led to some massacres like that of Kokrajhar in 1996.
The Rongmei, a Scheduled Tribe of Bishnupur district in Manipur is not governed by
the Sixth Schedule. Several have lost their land to ethnic conflicts and some to the Loktak
project but have not even been compensated since much of their sustenance was CPRs that
the law does not recognise as their community livelihood. They thus represent the interaction
of their community based customary law with the individual based administration. Now they
want to keep control over the remaining land but put it to commercial use as a step in their
search for non-land alternatives like education and jobs (Fernandes and Bharali 2002: 16-17).
The non-tribal Assamese of Nagaon district are a control group. They have passed
through the political process of the Assam Movement in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Its
main cause was land alienation (Baruah 1999). Today there are indications that like the
Rongmei they too are investing much in their children’s education and are giving more
importance to jobs in the administration than to tilling their land but retain its ownership. So
many of them employ immigrants, mostly of Bangladeshi origin, to till it. Some rent it out
for a season on a sharecropper basis but for only one season for fear of losing it permanently
(Fernandes and Barbora 2002b: 76-79). Thus they practise a new form of sharecropper
system that they themselves have experienced in the past. Assam is probably the only State in
the Northeast to have experienced the zamindari and share cropper systems that the British
introduced since they needed the State for tea and later petroleum. So they changed land laws
substantially to make it possible for them to acquire land easily (Barbora 1998).
Immigration, Land and Conflicts
The Northeast has a long history of immigration that has implications for land
relations but we shall not go into its pre-colonial history except to say that after its arrival in
the region each group developed its own identity but rarely faced intense competition for
land since it was abundant (Baruah 1999). The migration pattern and land relations changed
with colonialism. In order to change the Indian economy to suit the needs of the Industrial
Revolution the colonialist introduced the Permanent Settlement 1793 that strengthened the
feudal zamindari system and rendered many communities in Eastern India landless. Some of
them were brought to Assam as indentured labourers to work in its tea gardens (Guha 1975).
In Assam the British focused on extractive enterprises like tea and later petroleum.
Land acquisition for it resulted in much exploitation, displacement, alienation and
immigration of outsiders. The colonialist reserved the hill areas for trade or to popularise the
finished products of the industrial revolution. With this end in view he had to commercialise
or destroy tribal crafts to prevent competition with the Manchester textiles. At times also this
trade and a monetary economy based colonial approach led to land alienation, for example
among the Bodo-Kachari who were not familiar with the monetary economy. So merchants
from elsewhere in Assam took control of their trade. Since much of it was in agricultural
produce, they also came to control their cultivation and land (Bose 1997: 197-201).
Although the Bodos were already in revolt against land acquisition for tea and other
schemes, in the 1920s the government began to encourage deliberately the immigration of
East Bengal peasants to their region. Though called occupation of wastelands it was in fact
Boro livelihood (Roy 1995: 93-95). Similarly when the tea gardens did not need the workers,
some managers encouraged them to cut the forests in the neighbourhood, create bastis and
settle down in what they called unoccupied land that was the livelihood of the Boro and other
tribes (Kar 1999: 22-23). Thus, a distinctive feature of the colonial age is changing land
relations that continue to dominate the Northeast and lead to ethnic conflicts (Acharya 1990:
103-105). The type of migrants changed again in 1947. Prior to it immigration was mostly to
Assam and Tripura. At the Partition came the East Pakistan refugees to much of the region,
followed by immigrants from the Hindi region and Bangladesh in search of a livelihood.
The presence of the immigrants adds to the complexity of the region and has resulted
in conflicts since most of them occupy land around which the local communities have built
their economy, culture and identity. In Tripura revolts began already before 1947 and later
developments built on the thrust they gave. Most immigrants since 1947 are Bangladeshi
Hindus because of whom the population of Tripura grew by 34.41% in 1971-1981 and
33.69% in 1981-1991. The proportion of the tribals that was 70% in 1901, declined to
56.37% in 1951 and to around 28% in 1991. The tribals have lost both land and access to
education and other institutions. In 1961, 20.24% of the non-tribals and 10.01% of the tribals
were literate. In 1981 the figures were 42.12% and 23.07% respectively (Sen 1993: 13-18).
That makes changing land relations basic to conflicts particularly after 1947 when
immigrants came also to the hill areas were the communities were reacting to land alienation
and competition through cultural revival that began under colonialism when many of them
witnessed more attacks on their culture and identity from dominant Indian classes than on
their land (Sanyu 1996: 78-79). Each community reacted to the attacks in its own way. Some
like the 27 tribes of Nagaland or the Mizo came together to create a new identity and also
created a myth of all the Naga or Mizo having a common origin. Religious conversion was
the response of some like the Boro and Naga. Common to them was the fact that these
processes created in them a sense of unity and awareness of their rights. After 1947 such
awareness helped them to resist the imposition of a dominant Indian culture and retain their
identity (Datta 1990: 41-42). Amid this cultural bias land relations remain basic since attacks
on their land by the immigrants and others symbolise those on their culture and identity.
Land and Post-Independence Development
A reason why land has become a bigger source of conflict than in the rest of India is
low investment in the secondary sector and the consequent absence of livelihood alternatives.
The region is rich in mineral resources but relatively few industries have been set up. In 1994
the Seven Sisters together had 166 large and medium industries (D’Souza 1999: 9) while the
industrially “backward” Orissa had 374 of them in 1995 (Fernandes and Asif 1997: 60-61)
and the “advanced” Andhra Pradesh had 1,565 (Fernandes et al. 2001: 27). Lack of trained
personnel is not the reason for low investment. The region especially its tribal majority Hill
States have made substantial progress in education. In 2001 the literacy rate of Arunachal
Pradesh and Assam was below the national average but it was much higher in the remaining
five States of the region (Registrar General and Census Commissioner 2001: 108-109).
In the absence of productive jobs its well educated people depend on the primary and
tertiary sectors neither of which can expand. Its primary sector is mostly land and forests
while in the rest of India it includes sectors like mining. In 1996, 75.26% of the Nagaland
workforce and more than 70% in most other States was in this sector against an All India
average of 67.53%. The secondary sector employed between 3.48% and 8% against an All
India average of 11.97%. The tertiary sector is almost fully jobs in the administration while
in much of India it includes components like tourism, commerce. In 1996, 23.9% of the
Arunachal workforce, 20.45% of Assam, 21.46% of Meghalaya, 21.26% in Nagaland and
29% in Mizoram was in it against an All India average of 20.5% (D’Souza 1999: 10). With
86.11% of its population in 1991 rural, low urbanisation especially of the tribals (Fernandes
1999: 3579) and growing impoverishment and militarisation exacerbate the condition and
lack of alternatives leads easily to tension around land encroachment by immigrants.
Thus, the issue at stake is not immigration as such but alienation of livelihoods
around which many communities have built their culture, economy and identity. Land is
basic to it. The conflict lies in the changing land relations caused by its alienation and of
culture and identity. Much has been written on the close link of the tribal customary law
(Singh 1985) and the CPRs with equity (Barbora 2002) and women’s higher status than in
caste societies without their being equal to men. Their status was higher because most tribes
kept a better distinction that caste societies did, between the family and social spheres. The
woman was in charge of the family economy and decisions while the man represented the
family in society (Fernandes and Menon 1987: 63-70). The woman’s relatively high status
depended to a great extent on community ownership. She exercised partial control over the
CPRs in as much as she controlled production on behalf of the family (Menon 1995: 101).
Demography, Social Processes and Land Relations
Land relations are closely linked to demography and the social processes. For
example, subsistence farmers tend to have around five children since that is the number their
agriculture based economy requires (Mehta 1993: 341-342). At 5.95 the average size of the
sample families tallies with it but is higher among the Aka because some of their leaders who
practise polygamy have large families and raise the average of the whole tribe but most of
their families keep to the agricultural norm. The Assamese who are moving towards non-land
alternatives have small families. The size has long-term implications for land relations. Six of
the communities studied have male inheritance and land has to be divided among all the sons.
So a large family can cause conflicts. The sex ratio is 943 for the sample but it is 964 among
the matrilineal Garo and 916 among the Adibasi because being impoverished many teenaged
girls go to middle class families as domestic helpers (Fernandes and Barbora 2002a: 79-80).
Large families are not the only reason of the high population growth in the region.
Another reason is Hindi and Nepali speaking and Bangladeshi immigrants. The push factor is
lack of land reforms and the feudal system in their regions of origin. The fertile plains of the
Northeast are the pull factor. The immigrants prosper after occupying land that is the local
people’s livelihood because most of them are agricultural labourers who know the cultivation
techniques and use them to grow three crops. Most local communities, on the contrary, live
in a single crop culture because the zamindari and sharecropper systems that had developed
in Assam deprive them of motivation to grow a second crop since half or more of what they
grew went to the zamindar (Barbora 1998). Also jhum was limited to a single crop.
Immigration results in an encounter of these two histories. One of its results is land
shortage caused by encroachment and the contradiction that develops in the people’s attitude.
When land becomes scarce they need long-term non-land alternatives and they are viable
because of the high educational status of most States but very few jobs are created in the
secondary sector since those who control the economy have neglected investment in it and
have treated the region as a supplier of raw materials of tea, oil and coal. Even some of the
166 industries are sick, so jobs are being lost instead of new ones being created. Besides, the
present type of education takes them away from land but in the absence of jobs in the
secondary sector, their only alternative is the administration which is saturated Job and land
shortages result in competition which can result in conflicts as the anti-foreigner Assam
Movement (Baruah 1999) and the anti-Bihari riots in Assam (Fernandes 2003) show.
Conflict and Ambiguity around Land
Also the educational status shows the ambiguity that develops around land as a result
of competition and conflicts. The Rongmei and the Assamese want to retain control over land
while moving away from it as a livelihood but for different reasons. The Assam Movement
gave the latter access to jobs so they invest much in their children’s education as preparation
for it. An earlier study showed that all their children in the 6-14 age group were at school
(Fernandes and Barbora 2002b: 35-37). In the present sample all the boys and all except 4
girls in the 6-19 age group are at school or college (Fernandes and Pereira 2004: 34).
The Rongmei too seem to have given up hope in land as long-term security but for a
different reason. While the Assamese gained access to jobs through a struggle that had its
origin in land, the Rongmei are trying to gain access to jobs because they have lost land in
the Kuki-Naga conflict and need alternatives to it. So they use the remaining land as a tool in
this search. The alternatives they have chosen are high investment in children’s education
and jobs in the administration. 95% of their 168 boys and 150 girls in the 6-19 age group are
at school or college. Their commitment to alternatives is seen in the fact that, many of them
sell or mortgage their land to earn money for their children’s education or to bribe officials
for a job. They had a tradition of a symbiotic relationship with land and forests but have lost
hope in land as their sustenance and are using it for another form of livelihood.
Also the Boro have passed through a struggle for land. Though they are searching for
non-land alternatives, they have not lost hope in it as their livelihood. They keep occupying
the CPRs though they call themselves encroachers. Much of what they call encroached land
is what they got from the Santhals through the conflict as such are attached to it. They have
not had as much access to education as the Rongmei or the Assamese had. So while almost
all the children below 10 are at school, their proportion in higher standards is relatively low.
The link between land and search for alternatives is true also of the Adibasi. Literacy
among them is low and landlessness is high. Their impoverishment is the result of land loss
and transition to the status of indentured labourers that got them to internalise an ideology of
their inferior status and helplessness. They have been denied access to schools as we saw in
our earlier study on the education of plantation labourers. Thus the combination of loss of
land, denial of access to education and the regimented work culture has got them to
internalise the ideology of helplessness. 43 per cent of their children in the 6-14 age group
are out of school in the plantation areas (Fernandes, Barbora and Bharali 2003: 56).
In the present study we intentionally chose areas where some private agencies have
opened schools in recent years because we wanted to see whether such facilitators can take
them towards education and non-land alternatives. We understand that the schools did not
meet with immediate success but some civil society members succeeded in convincing them
to educate their children and take them towards alternatives away from the tea gardens. As a
result, though literacy is below 30% in the cohorts above 10, most children below 10 are at
school. The parents are using their little land to support their education by growing a second
potato crop. This alternative is visible also among the Dimasa and Aka who gained access to
education only five years ago. They send all their children to school but continue their CPR
dependence. The link between land and education is not yet clear among them but we are left
with the impression that oranges and potatoes are functioning as sources of income for it.
The Impact of Land Commercialisation
Thus the Assamese and the Rongmei and to some extent the Adibasi show that the
conflicts that have their origin in the shortages result in more changes in land relations. Also
the individual orientation of the administration initiates the processes leading to a patta that
is alien to their culture. The law recognises the CPRs only in the Sixth Schedule areas and
ignores the customary law of the others like the Manipur and Arunachal tribes. Even in the
Scheduled areas the individual based financial and State bodies give loans and subsidies to
patta owners alone, thus encouraging a transition to individual ownership with no protection
against its ill effects. Because of modernisation without protective measures, land that was
their livelihood and centre of their culture and identity becomes a commodity. Their
communities begin to lose the traditional sacredness attached to it. A new worldview
emerges that is unfamiliar to them, as seen among others, in the fact that much of the sale and
mortgaging is within the community. Class formation in their egalitarian societies is a result.
Thus the basis of conflicts is attacks on their livelihood through land encroachment.
Laws that recognise only individual ownership add to the tension caused by low investment
in productive jobs despite the high level of education in most States (Das Gupta 1990). Since
very few jobs are created in the secondary sector, their economy remains mainly land and
tertiary sector based but both are saturated. That causes conflicts that are firstly with the
immigrants many of whom prosper by using the agricultural techniques they bring with them
and cultivating three crops while the local people remain behind. The resentment it causes
extends to the communities within the region since because amid the shortages each group
perceives the others, whether they are immigrants or insiders, as competitors for the scarce
resources. So the changes have both intensified traditional rivalries and created new ones.
A crucial issue is commercialisation of land and forests or the transition of most
ethnic groups from subsistence to a commercial economy and of their land from livelihood to
a commodity. The administration supports the change by giving subsidies and loans to patta
owners alone. One of its results is the changeover from an egalitarian to a class society and
strengthening of patriarchy. These processes weaken the traditional tribal culture that gave
some decision-making power to women in the family. Today most power is transferred to
men even among the matrilineal tribes like the Garo who took to commercial crops with no
safeguards against the hazards of the conditions attached to subsidies and loans. Men who
had till now shared power with women in the task of producing riches, are slowly taking over
all decision-making in the family and society (Fernandes and Pereira 2004: 45-46). Most
patrilineal tribes too had traditionally allotted a higher role to women without making them
equal to men. The changes deprive them of that relatively high status (Menon 1995: 101).
Ethnic Conflicts and the Indigenous Status
The changes have also led to a new interpretation of the indigenous status. Amid the
shortages every community views the limited land and jobs as its exclusive right and tries to
exclude others from them. Because of their symbiotic relationship with land they view these
conflicts as defence of their culture and identity. However, while land is their basis one
cannot simplify the issue and call the conflicts and the indigenous demands economic alone.
This component is basic but land and forests are the centre also of tribal culture, religious
ethos and identity. That is a main reason why even when they find an alternative livelihood
such as a salaried job they retain control over land. Such close attachment to land is a reason
why it is the main cause of ethnic conflicts that begin with the shortage of the resources,
displacement by land acquisition and encroachment by immigrants. It has been a major issue
among the Mizo (Lianzela 2002: 243-244), the Rongmei (Fernandes and Bharali 2002: 2728) and others. The insurgency in Tripura is attributed to the influx of Hindu Bangladeshis
who had occupied over 60% of tribal land by 1970 and reduced tribal proportion in the
population from 58% in 1951 to 28% in 1991. Then came the Gumti dam which the tribals
resisted but it was built on what was considered common land that was their livelihood. Very
few were even compensated because it was considered State property (Bhaumik 2003: 84).
Thus, what is at stake is alienation of land, water and biodiversity around which they
have built their culture, economy and identity. With land and job shortages, competition
ensues for the limited resources not merely land but also for non-land alternatives such as
jobs. The neglect of the secondary sector by the economic decision-makers despite their high
level of education has resulted in shortages of land and jobs. Many of the 166 large and
medium industries existing in 1994 have closed down and no new ones have opened. So the
well educated population tries to defend also the limited salaried jobs since they too are
declining. Tension mounts when they feel a threat in this sector to as it happened in 2003
when applicants from Bihar flocked to Guwahati for the test for 2,000 Railway jobs.
However, given the close link between their land, culture and identity the conflicts
encompass all three components. They view the shortages also as an attack on their identity
as its indigenous people. In this region the indigenous issue differs substantially from that in
the rest of India where most tribes and some Dalits lay claim to the status. In the Northeast
the divide is between “insiders” and “outsiders” of the region. So some non-tribal dominant
groups too like the Ahom and Meitei lay claim to it (Misra 2000) using chronology as the
norm. Some go back to 1826 as the cut off date, a few fix 1951 and others speak of 1971. Its
second facet is hardened ethnic identities and the effort to exclude all others from access to
resources. Whatever the cut off date, the main issue is alienation of land, water, forests and
the rest of the livelihood on which are built their culture, economy and identity. Most groups
rewrite their history to declare themselves the original (indigenous) inhabitants of an area
having exclusive claim to its resources. From this interaction between land, idenity and the
indigenous status have originated most ethnic conflicts like the Naga-Kuki killings in
Manipur (Fernandes and Bharali 2002: 52-55), the Bodo-Santhal (Roy 1995) and Dimasa-
Hmar tension in Assam (The Telegraph, 23rd April 2003) and the Tripura demand for a
homeland in reaction to the immigrants occupying their land (Bhaumik 2003: 84).
The ethnic consciousness of neglect by the outsiders that grows from this encounter
leads at first to identity expansion. Several tribes merge to develop a new identity without
giving up their individuality and in so doing develop a belief in their common origin as the
Naga and the Mizo have done (Acharya 1990: 71-75). A factor beyond the economic sphere
that influences the feeling of discrimination and leads to struggles is the homogenising
dominant “one State one nation” trend of the Indian State and the tendency "to take the
degree of Aryanisation as the measure of Indianisation" (Datta 1990: 41). The people of the
region consider themselves different from those of the rest of India. So in the process of
coming together to safeguard their livelihood or to take advantage of modern inputs (Roy
Burman 1985: xii-xiii), the three steps of defending their livelihood, protecting their identity
and propounding a sub-nationalism specific to a culture and ethnic group merge into one
because of the close link between these components. Their reaction to perceived or real
discrimination expresses itself in terms of nationality, identity and ethnicity (Datta 1990: 42).
However, the conflicts and the reaction of the local people to the shortages go beyond
the outsiders whom they perceive as controlling their economy and imposing an external
culture on them. They result in hardened ethnic identities and exclusive claims to their
livelihood to the exclusion of all others. Most communities rewrite their history to claim an
exclusive right over the resources and culture of an area and refuse to recognise the right of
any other group. Ethnic conflicts are a direct consequence of such hardened identities and
exclusive claims. As stated above the Naga-Kuki, the Bodo-Santhal, the Dimasa-Hmar and
other conflicts have their origin in it. Studies indicate that loss of land to the erstwhile East
Pakistani Hindu immigrants at first and to the Gumti dam later led to the Tripura tribal
conflict for a homeland (Bhaumik 2003: 84) which continues to this day.
Conflicts, Customary Laws and Identity
We saw this situation also among the communities studied. The Rongmei had lost
much of their land in the Naga-Kuki conflict or to the Loktak scheme and that led to the
ambiguity towards land that we have seen above. For a decade they had fought to protect
their land or had protested when the State alienated their livelihood for the Loktak project but
they lost out on both counts. Also most Sathals of Kokrajhar lost their land in an ethnic
conflict and some Adibasi respondents of Lakhimpur lost theirs to an airport. In the Assam
Movement too land was a basic issue (Behal 2002: 145-146).
However, the reaction of the communities to land loss differs. The Rongmei sustained
themselves on the CPRs and their identity was linked to it but the Sixth Schedule did not
apply to them, so they lacked legal support. So when under threat they tried at first to defend
their resources and then reacted to the loss by rebuilding a new sub-national identity. They
came closer as a community, to some extent closed themselves and formed organisations to
develop new norms for the tribe. One of them seems to be to give a new meaning to land as a
tool in the search for alternatives such as education and salaried jobs. As stated above, most
of their children are at school. To earn money for education and to bribe officials for a job
some have mortgaged or sold their land. Thus it remains their livelihood but as a tool in their
transition to a new non-land based alternative (Fernandes and Bharali 2002: 16-17).
Like the Rongmei, the Tripura tribals too who had an identity built around their CPRs
lost them since the law did not recognise their control over them. Immigrants could encroach
on their land with impunity and the State could acquire it without compensation (Bhaumik
2003: 84). Despite the loss they continue to struggle for it. The Boro too had an identity
attached to their land which they had rebuilt through conversion to the reformist Brahmo
Hinduism or to Christianity that reformed their society without alienating them fully from
their past (Roy 1995: 90-95). But they have internalised the ideology of individual ownership
which alone the law recognises and call themselves encroachers, not CPR dependants. They
have re-written their history to lay exclusive claim to land to the exclusion of the Santhals.
The Santhals, the Lakhimpur Adibasi and other plantation labourers were brought to
Assam as indentured labourers. Because of the regimented work structure in the tea gardens
for over a century and landlessness forced on them, they have lost their tribal identity and
have imbibed a psyche of dependence and helplessness (Fernandes, Barbora and Bharali
2003: 2-3). It has conditioned their reaction to the loss of their little land. Unlike the
Rongmei who reacted by coming together to develop a new non-land based identity, the
Adibasi have reacted to it by falling into a sense of greater helplessness.
Finding Solutions
The above analysis shows the urgency of a search for viable solutions. We can offer
only some remedies to avoid these conflicts that follow but we consider the suggestions
tentative. They are more in the line of a direction to follow than a solution.
Economic Solutions
Though culture and identity are linked to land, the search for solutions has to begin
with economic livelihoods. Its first step is for the economic and political decision-makers to
realise that the region is in raw materials and has a high level of education. So it cannot be
treated only as a supplier of raw materials. They have to face the issue of massive
unemployment not merely because it is an important cause of unrest but also as a right of the
people. With its rich raw material base of natural and mineral resources, the secondary sector
should be able to generate a stable income by creating new jobs but it is not happening.
Several governments of the region that invite private industries to invest in major
units claim to be trying to solve this problem. However, one cannot ignore the fact that, they
depend on plenty of land, mechanisation and low employment generation. For example, the
proposed Gas Cracker Project in Assam is expected to cost around Rs 4,000 crores and create
some 30,000 direct and indirect jobs at Rs 13.3 lakhs each. A direct job will probably cost
around Rs 30 lakhs. We have said above that Assam probably has 20 lakh unemployed. The
remaining States would have another 10 lakhs. At Rs 13.3 lakhs per job Rs 400,000 are
required to deal with this backlog. More jobs have to be created for the growing population.
So unemployment cannot be solved by capital intensive mechanised industries.
Possible Solution in Land
Since the secondary sector as it exists today cannot provide non-land alternatives to
deal with massive unemployment the alternative probably lies in going back to land.
Agriculture cannot provide the answer in its present form but it can become a solution if a
creative use is made of the region’s abundant bio-resources not through capital intensive
mechanised industries but through low investment units that can optimise land use and create
jobs by increasing agricultural output and rendering land productive without destroying the
equitable CPR based community culture. The analysis given above shows that though land
encroachment is a major problem, the issue goes beyond it to its commercialisation and the
de-linking of their culture and identity from land. So ways have to be found of helping their
communities to renew their link with land as a livelihood and create a new economy based on
it. It has to be new, not the present single crop based system. It may require also commercial
crops but not necessarily those that the State encourages. A criterion in choosing the species
should be their impact on land relations and the possible class formation they can introduce.
In order to understand the steps we looked at what the Dimasa and the Garo have
done. While some of the former took to coffee and individual pattas, others introduced
orange and other crops that they can grow and sell without changing their land control
system. They have changed land use by adding a commercial angle to it but have retained its
role as their sustenance and identity. The Garo introduced a commercial species over which
they had no control. Its result is seen in their occupational pattern and other economic data.
Landholdings are unequal among them. Out of 551 of their family members above 10 years
of age, 120 are students. Of the remaining 431 as many as 133 (31.59%) are landless daily
wage earners. Besides, in the 110 families studied, 29 (24.17%) women declared themselves
housewives with no economic involvement outside the family while no Dimasa woman
belongs to this category. In the matrilineal Garo tradition the woman could boast of a high
social and economic status and active participation in the land and forest based productive
processes. Today in many families her control over the resource and her active participation
in the decision-making process has all but disappeared (Fernandes and Pereira 2004: 39-41).
The Role of the State and Civil Society
One can thus see that land as an alternative is possible but it can be viable if the State
and the civil society help them to evolve creative programmes that yield good results. The
issue is not whether commercial crops or even fertilisers should be encouraged or not but
their nature and type. They need new species that build on the tribal ethos because they have
to increase agricultural output and land productivity. These inputs have to cater to new needs
such as children’s education or emergencies like illness and social demands like marriage
and death in the family. The State and the civil society may have to begin with these needs as
the starting point in the task of rebuilding their communities and culture around land by
combining high productivity with modes of protecting their equitable value system.
That is where the Dimasa and Garo experiences become relevant. The individual
based administrative approach with which the Garo interacted contributed to class formation
and the consequent break up of their community. We know from their experience and that of
other communities that it has in its turn resulted in hardened ethnic identities and conflicts
within the region. Field experiences as well as studies also indicate that both the State and the
civil society have failed in the search for alternatives. However, a few experiences that may
be exceptions show that it is possible to integrate commercial crops with equitable land
distribution and community control but it has to be analysed and replicated.
These experiences, the external control of their economy and the neglect of the
secondary sector also show that a crucial issue is control not merely over land but also over
the rest of the economy including production and marketing. The local communities will not
be able to wrest complete control over all of it overnight. The role of the State and the civil
society is to put in place processes that can strengthen their communities by training them to
go beyond agricultural production to processing the produce and marketing of the products.
A major obstacle to their growth is the debilitating effect of the middleman grabbing the
lion’s share of the income from their work or rejecting the produce. For example, because of
the shallow tube well project in 2000 Assam had a bumper rice crop but those controlling the
market did not buy it. So the motivation to improve their agriculture or grow a second crop
disappeared. Similarly, though opinion is created against the immigrants, most building
contractors or even cultivators prefer them to the local people because they work for low
wages. This vested interest prevents the local people from getting even manual work
The role of the middleman and the lack of control over the market point not merely to
the poor marketing facilities but also to the fact that, the State and the civil society have by
and large focused on the individual and production and have all but ignored the need to
rebuild the community and deal with the market. A possible tool of strengthening the
community is to help it to take control of marketing which is a bigger source of exploitation
than production. Cooperatives are a possible solution but they are to be based on their
tradition, not on what the State thinks they should be. Most tribes have a community ethos
that can be modernised. So the State does not have to impose on them cooperatives based on
another history but find ways of strengthening their community and customary laws. As
stated above, the State has failed to achieve a viable integration of the traditional with the
modern. Even when their customary law is recognised official inputs are individual based.
Combining the Modern with the Traditional
However, a few experiments are being conducted that can point the direction in which
one can go. We have referred to the effort of the Dimasa to combine commercial crops with
the traditional land ownership pattern. Another effort is being made among the Garo through
the Mendipathar Multipurpose Cooperative Society that was a response to the low price the
middlemen were offering for rubber. So it began as a rubber marketing cooperative and
slowly spread to other commodities. Much of its control is in the hands of women but men
are not excluded. It is built on the individual land ownership pattern that became the norm
among them but keeps a community based democratic decision-making and profit-sharing
pattern in marketing. It has taken to a competitive pricing pattern by keeping the sale price of
goods lower than what the other merchants offer but offers a higher price for purchases than
the middlemen do. So it has kept a community ethos is competitive marketing.
These efforts are a beginning, not the final answer. They show that to succeed an
alternative has to combine tradition with modernity. The past has to change. One cannot
accept the romantic view of the past being perfect nor can one abandon their rich culture
completely on the belief that only what is modern is good. When their community, culture
and identity are under attack, the challenge of the State and the civil society, in particular
those involved in development and education is to strengthen their community. The first step
in achieving it a high investment in technical education required for the communities to take
control of production. Literacy is high in the region but priority in higher education has been
on the humanities and social sciences that are needed but to build a secondary sector and
create productive jobs, they also need technically trained persons.
Secondly, today education takes the student away from land. A viable alternative has
to take the communities back to land. They need to develop confidence in their capacity to
take the risk of planting more than one crop, producing new varieties and processing them.
Education has to help them to acquire the self-confidence required to take control of their
economy and deal as equals with the outsiders who control it now. Such self-confidence has
to be combined with the value of genuine peace which is based on equality, autonomy and
social liberation, not merely on the absence of arms. Though at times expressed through
violence, what the people of the region are demanding is their right to a life with dignity
enshrined in Article 21 of the Constitution. In the past they used to get it from their land. The
official and civil society inputs should strengthen this sense of dignity and right to such a life.
Such self-confidence cannot be limited to a few individuals. The whole community
has to internalise the self-confidence and the risk element that can take them in a new
direction without destroying their equity based value system. The Rongmei and Dimasa
experiences show that when some individuals take new steps, others follow them if they see
them succeeding. Step by step the whole community internalises the need for change. The
Dimasa have internalised it to such an extent that the families that grow new crops refer to
themselves, not to the lead farmers, as change agents. It was possible because the new crops
were chosen according to their capacity to deal with them. Their community did not remain
unchanged after this effort. Their approach to land changed but not its land ownership
system. The Garo had to undo the damage done already. So they tried to build on their
community ethos while retaining individual ownership that had become the norm. In so
doing they dealt with the gender issue. They show that, the change through a cooperative
approach can go together with individual ownership. More important than its external form is
the community ethos adapted to new needs. They need training for many of these processes.
That is the reason why the co-operative felt the need to begin self-help groups in order to
take them back to the original community and link the co-operative to it once again. In many
other Garo areas such as Mendal they are attempting a similar system through the SHGs.
Also the official inputs can change in this direction. For example, the Integrated
Tribal Development Programme is directed at a few individuals who are given loans and
subsidies for production. Many fail because they lack the support of forward and backward
linkages since middlemen continue to control the market. Some opine (Roy Burman 1992:
30-32) that the ITDA should subsidise the community as a whole or give a project to a clan
or a village and thus build internal accountability and mutual support and strengthen the
community. This effort can be doubly successful if in addition to these projects also their
community based customary law is recognised in practice.
Conclusion
This paper has analysed some processes that have at times strengthened the
community and the land ownership pattern based on it and in other cases weakened it. This
approach has led to many conflicts. The analysis of the social processes and of the conflicts
shows that, the solution does not lie in going back to the past. The few experiments studied
above indicate that the best results are achieved when modern inputs build on the past. Their
customary laws were equity based and assigned a relatively high status to women but did not
consider them equal to men. For modernisation to be equitable, one has to build on the value
system that their communities represent but take them beyond it. The civil society can assist
them in this task. The school can contribute to it by encouraging the children to work in
groups or as communities and to take initiatives such as growing new crops that can improve
their nutritional status. They can thus absorb the value of using their land creatively to
rebuild their community and economy. Community work to grow new crops can support this
process. They can thus absorb the value of tilling land as their livelihood and become “lead
farmers” who motivate the community to rebuild itself by accepting new practices,earning an
income for new needs and freeing themselves from the middleman.
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